


Needs

by gondalsqueen



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Depictions of injury, F/M, Missing Scene, Space family, The Protector of Concord Dawn, a little sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 14:15:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5873668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gondalsqueen/pseuds/gondalsqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her spirit was still there, hidden away in the safehouse of her body, waiting until the heavy fire stopped before it came out. But she didn’t LOOK alive—didn’t look as if those limbs and that face could ever move, supple and animated, again.</p><p>A missing scene from “The Protector of Concord Dawn”—Kanan’s thoughts while Hera’s on the operating table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needs

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for the moms who go from zero to wide awake at 2 a.m. because of a tiny voice on the other end of the house.

Her body didn’t look the same.

Part of it was the bruising, rust colored, blooming out from her injuries like dye-stained water. The rest of her color was off, too, sallow with hypothermia. But he didn’t understand what made her look smaller, brittle—straight lines instead of soft curves. She hadn’t lost that much fluid.

Her spirit was still there, hidden away in the safehouse of her body, waiting until the heavy fire stopped before it came out. But she didn’t LOOK alive—didn’t look as if those limbs and that face could ever move, supple and animated, again.

She didn’t look anything like the woman he’d had beneath him just last night. ( _Remember it_ , said the part of his mind that guarded him from injury. _It might be the last time.)_ The rest of the crew had stayed out late at a holo on the corvette, and she’d gotten more vocal than usual. “Need you,” she’d murmured, arms and legs holding him tightly against her, husky in his ear. “Kanan, mmm. Yes. Need you, need you, need you.” And they had looked at each other afterwards and laughed in happy surprise. It had been…fantastic. One of those mind-blowing nights beyond the ordinary.

“You’ve got to hurry. Please hurry!” Sabine had shouted, a descent from report into entreaty. Help me. Fix this for me. Save her, I can’t do it. Sabine didn’t ask for that kind of thing often, and never directly. They all needed him, really needed him in a way that tied him to them just as firmly as he was tied to Hera. He’d have to finish what she started, he saw. He’d have to keep working on the long project.

The medical droid didn’t make small talk—only useful information. Now it told him, “The bleeding is stopped. We have repaired the internal damage and are commencing less vital repairs. You can let her blood flow on its own, beginning now.”

Kanan eased out of the Force hold, but didn’t entirely remove his awareness from her body. The mask on her face fogged with her breath—not much, but it was there. The monitor on her wrist beeped steadily with heartbeat and brain activity, none of the stutters they’d gotten when they first brought her in. He could still hold her, if he had to. He could hold her here. He could murmur, “Need you, need you, need you” into her mind until she mustered and held herself in place.

Looking at her, broken and tired, he couldn’t bring himself to put one more burden on her. Instead he spoke out loud, telling her what the droids were doing, telling her that Sabine had made it home all right, telling her that he would come up with a new plan for Concord Dawn. The wrist monitor beeped evenly.

Afterwards, Hera clean and resting and safely guarded against infection and not dead, the rest of the crew came to see her. So many shocked faces—they should have been in the room before. They didn’t realize how much better she looked.

“Hera,” Sabine told her sleeping form. “I’m so sorry.”

The medical droid hovered, checking the monitor yet again.

“Hera, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to go back and get that guy,” Sabine promised.

This time, Kanan heard it too. “Sabine.”

“What?”

“Talk again.”

“Hera, can you hear me? Everything’s okay. You got us back home.”

Right at the beginning, a blip in the pattern of her brain waves. “Sabine. Say her name.”

“Hera.”

A sharp spike, then a more languid attempt to climb up towards consciousness before she fell back again. She was struggling towards Sabine’s voice. She hadn’t responded to _his_ voice.

She’d left Sabine going into a dangerous jump, probably too quick to know whether or not the girl had avoided the shots that found Hera. Something of that worry remained. And so she struggled her way up from a deep sleep because Sabine had called her and no matter what it took, she was coming to help. Need you, need you, need you.

“The patient needs rest.” The droid’s tone didn’t change, but they all heard the reproof. “She is under sedation and should remain that way for the next several hours, at least.”

“Okay,” Kanan spoke for all of them. “Sorry.”

But he wasn’t sorry at all, because now he knew she would recover. These types of injuries were all tricky, and even though they had assured him that she should make a full recovery, you never knew for sure what the person’s mental state would be until after she woke up and spoke. But if Hera was remembering what had happened and processing voices—if she was responding to Sabine—then she was still here. _His_ Hera was still here. They said quick goodbyes and Kanan rested his hand between Sabine’s shoulders as they left the room.

“We didn’t have a chance,” she told him. “I should never have left her there!”

Oh, Kanan knew that stricken look well. “Hey.” He had to shut that kind of thinking down. Sabine brooded worse than he did. “Hey, who’s the better pilot, you or Hera?”

Her answer came promptly. “Hera.”

“What would have happened if you’d jumped last?”

“Oh, I’d be dead, for sure.”

“Okay, then. She’s not dead. You minimized the damage.”

“But she might WELL have been! I’d rather it be me.”

“I know.” Boy, did he know. “But look—what you did—you saved her.”

“Kanan, that makes no sense. I jumped away from her in a fight.”

“Yes. But that was the best thing you could do—get yourself to safety so she only had one to protect instead of two. Hera knows that. YOU know it. If you hadn’t left, she couldn’t have concentrated on defending herself.”

Sabine shook her head and muttered something that he was pretty sure contained the word “banthashit,” but she relaxed a little.

“Hey,” he offered. “She’s going to be fine. She needs you to go make a report.” _And then she needs me to finish the mission._


End file.
